Diffractive electron imaging of nanoparticles on a substrate
The observation of the detailed atomic arrangement within nanostructures has previously required the use of an electron microscope for imaging. The development of diffractive (lensless) imaging in X-ray science and electron microscopy using ab initio phase retrieval provides a promising tool for nan...
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Published in | Nature materials Vol. 4; no. 12; pp. 912 - 916 |
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Main Authors | , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
England
Nature Publishing Group
01.12.2005
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | The observation of the detailed atomic arrangement within nanostructures has previously required the use of an electron microscope for imaging. The development of diffractive (lensless) imaging in X-ray science and electron microscopy using ab initio phase retrieval provides a promising tool for nanostructural characterization. We show that it is possible experimentally to reconstruct the atomic-resolution complex image (exit-face wavefunction) of a small particle lying on a thin carbon substrate from its electron microdiffraction pattern alone. We use a modified iterative charge-flipping algorithm and an estimate of the complex substrate image is subtracted at each iteration. The diffraction pattern is recorded using a parallel beam with a diameter of approximately 50 nm, illuminating a gold nanoparticle of approximately 13.6 nm diameter. Prior knowledge of the boundary of the object is not required. The method has the advantage that the reconstructed exit-face wavefunction is free of the aberrations of the objective lens normally used in the microscope, whereas resolution is limited only by thermal vibration and noise. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Correction/Retraction-2 ObjectType-Feature-3 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 1476-1122 1476-4660 |
DOI: | 10.1038/nmat1531 |